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Kid Beyond

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Kid Beyond
Kid Beyond @ Coachella 2007
Kid Beyond @ Coachella 2007
Background information
Birth nameAndrew Chaikin
OriginSan Francisco, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)Singer, Beatboxer, Voice actor
Instruments
Years active1991-Present
LabelsLove-Million Records
Websitehttp://www.kidbeyond.com/

Kid Beyond (real name Andrew Chaikin) is a voice actor, singer, beatboxer, throat singer, songwriter, and live looper based in the San Francisco area.

Early career

Chaikin attended Brown University and was a leader in the co-ed fraternity Zeta Delta Xi. He sang in the Jabberwocks, a student a cappella group. He graduated in 1991 and moved to San Francisco to form the House Jacks with Deke Sharon, recording "Naked Noise" and "Funkwich" with the band (the latter for Tommy Boy Records).

He left the House Jacks in 1997.

In 2004 Kid Beyond made a cameo appearance as an actor in the music video Maximum Wage, which featured music he co-created with Andrew Bancroft.

He released his first solo EP, Amplivate, in 2006.

Performances

Kid Beyond has toured nationally with Imogen Heap.[1] He has also performed at major music festivals, including sets at Burning Man atop a Unimog, the Langerado festival,[2] the 2007 Wakarusa Music and Camping Festival,[3] and Coachella.[4]

His song from Amplivate,"Mothership", was used in NBA Live 08 by EA Sports.

While opening for Buckethead in San Francisco on February 15, 2008, Kid Beyond mentioned recording vocals for "Free Bird" and other songs for Guitar Hero II.

Kid Beyond performed at the inaugural w00tstock[5] shows at the Swedish American Hall, San Francisco, California on October 19 and 20, 2009.

Techniques

Kid Beyond's performances often include some traditional beatboxing as well as live looping. The looped pieces make heavy use of Ableton's Live software on a laptop to layer and loop vocal and vocal percussion tracks together to create full songs. Prior to concerts, the software is configured with the tracks that will be used in each piece, including any necessary effects and levels, but lacking any audio. A set of MIDI controller foot pedals allow Kid Beyond to control the software during performance, enabling him to record, play, and manipulate the audio tracks with a set of predefined macros. In some cases, a single press of a pedal performs multiple actions, such as muting one track while initializing recording on another.[6]

In recognition of his innovative techniques, Ableton made him a featured artist[7] on their website and presented him at a series of clinics in Germany.[8] The associated footage[9] was shown on a number of viral video sites.

Voice work

As Andrew Chaikin, he has performed as a voice-over artist for a number of video games and advertisements, prominently in American McGee's Alice as The Mad Hatter/The White Rabbit/The March Hare, and in the 2005 game Star Wars: Republic Commando, where he does the voices of Clone Advisor and Delta 40 "Fixer".[10]

He also provided several voices in graphic adventure titles by Telltale Games, including Phoney Bone and Ted the bug in the Bone adaptations, a pair of suspects in CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder, and most notably Max for the first episode "Culture Shock" of Sam & Max Season One before being replaced by William Kasten for the rest of the series due to health reasons. Recent Telltale Games characters include a few pirates in Tales of Monkey Island and Narrator, Papierwaite, and a Moleman in Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse. He also voiced Biff Tannen in Back to the Future: The Game, Grendel in The Wolf Among Us and Carlos in the second season of The Walking Dead.

He has also provided his vocal talents for the cover versions of the songs from Konami's Karaoke Revolution video game series starting with Karaoke Revolution Volume 2. His song "Mothership" is on Tap Tap Revenge 2. He has appeared in the official video game adaptation of Iron Man 2 as the villain Ultimo and JARVIS.

He appears as Penny Arcade's Tycho Brahe in Poker Night at the Inventory, making him the first actor to ever portray the character.

He portrayed Dio Brando in the 2004 English dub of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure OVA.[11]

Awards

  • Best of the Bay 2006: Best Oral in the Bay[12]
  • Best of San Francisco: Best Beatboxer[13]

References

  1. ^ Being There Mag
  2. ^ Langerado.com
  3. ^ Wakarusa.com
  4. ^ Coachella.com
  5. ^ Paul and Storm w00tstock
  6. ^ Hawkins, Eric (2006-01-01). "Get Loopy". Remix Magazine. Retrieved 2007-04-06.
  7. ^ Ableton.com
  8. ^ Ableton.com
  9. ^ Youtube.com
  10. ^ See the IMDb article on Andrew Chaikin Imdb.com
  11. ^ "Kid Beyond on Twitter". Twitter. Retrieved 2016-06-01.
  12. ^ Chun, Kimberly. "Best of the Bay 2006: Best Oral in the Bay". San Francisco Bay Guardian. Archived from the original on 2008-08-22. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
  13. ^ "Best of San Francisco: Best Beatboxer". SF Weekly. May 19, 2004. Retrieved 2009-02-16.
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